It's The End Of The World As We Know It
by Incensio Lady
Summary: The world died around them, but there may be one place of safety


Connor finds the idea of the eternally neutral Swiss destroying existence pretty ironic.

They'd missed the original hype and worry, no one seemed to be taking it particularly seriously and they'd been busy chasing an obviously ancient herbivore though Hyde Park.

It had taken another two weeks before the people at CERN had admitted there was a problem. There'd already been fatalities and the news reports flashed images of the absolute darkness that was all that was left of a steadily growing part of Europe.

Apocalypse by Superconductor was one that Connor had never expected. Anti-matter eating its way exponentially out of Switzerland didn't even enter onto his list.

All life on Earth had about three months (they were still arguing about whether this was going to destroy the entire universe but it was pretty academic by this point), England had about two. The only thing the scientists could agree on was that there was nothing they could do.

They'd all been so tied up in the anomalies and their own possibility for destruction that they hadn't really thought of any other threats, it all seemed a little self centred now actually.

It only took about four hours for the riots and looting to start. They'd all retreated to the ARC and it's built in security and supplies.

They'd gotten blind drunk that night, even the soldiers as they came off duty. They'd stayed that way as the riots calmed into general civil unrest. Connor had learnt a lot about his team mates from that, Nick was a mopey drunk, Stephen despondent and Abby just cried a lot.

It was a month and counting when it happened. It was an innocuous comment, something Blade had thrown off while staring into the last of the scotch.

"I wonder what all the dinos think of us destroying their future."

The words flared in Connor's mind and he stumbled towards the dark and silent anomaly detector. They'd turned it off weeks ago, it was too dangerous to go out and it was killing Nick not to be able to do anything.

Connor flicked the switches and watched as the screens flared to life.

"What are you doing?" Nick's voice made him jump though he logged in before he turned around.

"The past!"

Nick stared at him, confused and more than a little drunk.

"It's a paradox! If the past is destroyed, none of this could have ever happened because mankind would have never existed to destroy ourselves. Don't you see, if we can go through an anomaly to the past we'll escape the anti-matter because what's happening now tells us it isn't there!"

It seemed to take Nick a few moments to digest that before his eyes widened and he sat down hard. Everything got very fast after that.

It turned out that when Lester said he had contingency plans for everything up to and including alien invasion he wasn't lying. The government had plans and stockpiles for everything, including the end of the world.

They also had a list.

A list that included everyone needed to build a new world, and it wasn't as short-sighted as one would expect from the government, heavy on the scientists but there were also agricultural specialists and civil engineers and builders.

A group that when the alarms had gone off had been given a place to hide.

They made contact that afternoon, they weren't far away, forty kilometres or so but it may as well have been the moon until they were ready to risk going out.

The man in charge was a terrified looking lieutenant who wasn't a whole lot older than Connor himself was. He looked so pleased to be able to hand control over to Ryan and Lester. Even more so when they told him that there was a plan. He practically fell over himself to fax them the personnel and stockpile lists.

596 men, women and children. Just over eight hundred when you included the scientists, military and family hiding in the ARC.

Eight hundred people were all that was to be left of the human race. The ARC started to take on a very ironic symbolic meaning.

They packed up the trucks with everything they could get their hands on from the ARC, weapons and ammunition and all the food and medical supplies they could find. It was a little pitiful, filling two trucks and half of another but it wasn't them they were counting on.

The bunker had a fleet of trucks packed with everything from food to blacksmith equipment.

All they needed was to find them a way out.

It was left up to Nick, Stephen and Ryan's team to chase down the anomalies. The first they hadn't even sent a team to, it was almost eighty kilometres from them, one hundred and twenty from the bunker. The second they almost lost half of the team when they ran into a group of looters, and after all that it went too early in time to support them anyway.

But third time was lucky, it was the Permian, about as good as it was going to get for them, only fifteen kilometres from the ARC, right in between them and the bunker and the magnetic field was strong.

They'd been drilling for this moment since the trucks were packed and it only took them twenty minutes to have everyone loaded up and the convoy moving.

Their's was mostly private cars, the trucks in the centre and the Special Forces SUVs keeping a perimeter. The run was pretty clear, they skirted the edge of a small riot and had to scare off a few looters but the vultures mostly avoided anything as heavily defended as they were. The convoy from the bunker was slower and they had to shoot down a few of the more persistent attackers but they also made it without loss.

Connor hadn't been out in weeks and the anomaly team had been pretty closed mouthed about what they'd seen. He'd expected it to be bad but nothing like this. Smoke drifted over the London skyline and some of the taller buildings stood out sharply as light shone through the burnt out remains of their upper floors. There were dead on the street, rotting and bloated, filling the air with the stench of decay and eyes watched them carefully from behind boarded up windows.

The anomaly was in a small park, they had to blow up a tree to give the trucks clear entrance but otherwise it was the perfect spot.

Ryan had his arms crossed over his gun and Connor had to stop himself from giggling a little hysterically when he started directing traffic.

They lined the trucks up with the supplies first, then the first military contingent and the team from the bunker. The refugees from the ARC came next then the last of the military and the anomaly teams. The idea was that if the anomaly closed before they were all through at least they knew how to find another. Connor just tried to hide his shaking hands as he settled into the SUV at the back of the line.

The minutes seemed to drag by until suddenly they were ready and everything flashed into fast forward.

Ryan held up his arm and all eyes were suddenly on him.

"Ok, you'll have to go full speed to get out of the range of the magnetic pull but we've got a flat plain on the other side so there shouldn't be any problem. We've got a lot coming through so rendezvous is eight hundred metres from the anomaly, One O'clock when you go through; it's a slight rise that's easy to spot. DO NOT STOP until you reach it. Understand?" The drivers nodded and the first few started their engines.

They moved fast, they'd drilled for this too, it only took five minutes to get the supplies and the bunker team through, a little longer for the refugees and that's when Connor started noticing the magnetic levels dropping and his heart sank.

"Captain! The anomaly is fading!"

Ryan swore and everything moved from deliberate to frantically fast as Connor's eyes remained locked on the shattered light of the anomaly.

The last few minutes were a terrified scramble and the relief was acidic in Connor's throat when Ryan waved the last car through and grabbed onto the sidestep of the SUV.

The anomaly flickered in front of them but Stephen's foot slammed down hard on the accelerator and Connor felt the warm burst of Permian air and the tingle of the anomaly before they spun out onto an ancient field.

Connor turned his head and watched the anomaly flicker a few more times before it winked out of existence. Then he slumped down in his seat and asked the only important question left.

"So what happens now?"


End file.
